Guacamole

When I was young I wouldn’t eat guacamole because it was green and slimy. Thankfully, I got over the whole visual thing, and I’m now the number one fan of avocados. I’m particularly fond of guacamole, especially if it’s made with fresh ingredients.

This recipe is adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks, El Paso Chile Company’s Texas Border Cookbook, by W. Park and Norma Kerr. The authors recommend the small black Haas avocados instead of the bright green Florida avocados because, they claim, Florida avocados are stringy and tasteless.

It just ain’t so.

Florida avocados may be bright green but they are gigantic and flavorful. Unlike the small black avocados, Florida avocados have 50 percent less fat and 33 percent fewer calories (according to the sticker on each avocado) than those grown in California due to Florida’s high humidity. I often use Florida avocados instead of the Haas not because of the fat and caloric content but because Florida avocados are cheaper and the taste is similar to the California variety.